The dynamics of skeletal muscle: a computational study

Understanding the structure and function of skeletal muscle furthers our understanding of body mechanics. Mathematical muscle models are useful for studying muscle mechanics, especially when it is difficult or unethical to do so experimentally. Hill-type muscle models are commonly used in biomechanics and estimate muscle force based on properties measured from experiments done on single fibres. As a result, typical Hill-type models fail to account for important factors such as mass and the three-dimensional behaviour of muscle. Using the principles of continuum mechanics and the finite element method, a dynamic 3D continuum muscle model was developed which incorporated the contractile properties of muscle fibres and mass. This thesis established the convergence in space and time of our numerical scheme. We then compared the behaviours of quasi-static, isokinetic and fully dynamic models. The increased complexity of the models is shown to provide added insight into muscle mechanics in certain regimes.